


Always a Wolf

by sunkelles



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Empathy?, Gen, Hostage Situations, I dunno what else to tag this, I just really love Sansa, Storytelling, and Theon's situation interests me, so this happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:14:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2374139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa knows that she is a hostage now, the way that Theon Greyjoy was for so many years. They will hold her as leverage against Robb. And like Theon, they might even take off her head. To Sansa’s dismay, she finds the thought preferable to being married to Joffrey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always a Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> Basically just some memories and Sansa reflecting on Theon Greyjoy's situation after being placed in a similar one.
> 
> Not really friendship-y, but it's a nonromantic relationship so I guess that qualifies as platonic.  
> Also, I just really love the trope where someone tells someone else something personal in the form of a thinly veiled story.

 

Her father’s head falls to the ground and his blood splatters on the pristine, white steps of the sept. Sansa hears herself screaming before she even processes what has happened.   
 _They were supposed to let him take the black,_ she thinks desperately. But her father is headless instead and her tears roll down her face as Joffrey Baratheon laughs. 

* * *

 

 

Sansa knows that she is a hostage now, the way that Theon Greyjoy was for so many years. They will hold her as leverage against Robb. And like Theon, they might even take off her head. To Sansa’s dismay, she finds the thought preferable to being married to Joffrey.

* * *

 

 

Sansa almost can’t find it in herself to hate him. If she had a chance to conquer the Red Keep and kill Joffrey, she knows that she would. No matter what Robb thought, Theon was always a hostage. And no matter how angry she is at him for killing her brothers, she feels a sort of kinship with him as well. She had never truly understood what it was to a hostage before. She knew what it was on a superficial level, but she had never been one, and so she couldn’t truly empathize with him, or understand the tale that he told her so long ago.

It was after Theon had told her a story, of “valiant” Ironborn raiders who stole everything in their wake. Sansa had protested that their actions were not honorable or valiant, but Theon had laughed. 

“Do you want to hear a different story, then?” He had asked. 

“Tell me about knights,” she ordered, the way that small children are prone to doing

“How about one without knights or Ironborn,” he says. Sansa’s nose crinkled in consideration. 

“Alright,” she finally replied.

“There was once a little merman,” he said, “and he lived under the sea with his mother and his sister.” 

“The sea was cold and dark and dank,” Theon said, “but it was his home.” He paused a moment for dramatic effect, or perhaps he was just searching for the right words. Sansa didn’t care much. This story was already more interesting than all the ones that Robb or Jon tried to tell. Neither of them were very good at storytelling.

“One day,” Theon said, as his voice took on a different quality, one Sansa couldn’t quite identify, “a fisherman caught the little merman in his net and dragged him onto the deck of his ship.”

“But he’ll die!” Sansa exclaimed. She always became invested in stories, especially ones that she’d never heard.

“Oh, he didn’t die,” Theon said, and he almost sounded disappointed, almost sorrowful. Sansa was lost in confusion for a moment before he continued.

“The little merman grew a pair of legs and a pair of lungs,” Theon said, “but it was difficult. Breathing took effort. He felt as though he was suffocating.” Theon paused a moment, and Sansa knew better than to speak; the story he was telling was serious.

“And the fisherman took the little merman far, far away from the sea,” he said.

“He took him to his home in the mainland, where the air smelt of pines and cold and nothing like the brine of the sea-“

“But why did he take him from his home?” Sansa asked, because that part of the story did not make sense. The fisherman was the villain, of that she was sure, but he had no motive. Villains always had motives. They committed crimes for power or wealth or women; they did not do things for nothing.

“The merman asked, but the fisherman never told. Instead, he raised the merman along with his children, and they became friends. Sometimes the merman even forgot that the land wasn’t his home. But then he would remember the day that he was taken and the briny scent of the sea and his mother and his sister. And he would feel like he was suffocating all over again, that noose closing in around his neck.”

“Inside, he always knew he was of the sea, the sea was in his blood” he said, “and that he would- could never be one of them. Though he wanted to, he could never be human. The ocean flowed through his veins. He was a merman, through and through.” Theon stopped at this point, and did not continue.

“What happens next?” Sansa demanded.

Then, and only then, did Theon plaster on his smile once again.

“I don’t know,” he said while the corners of his lips quirked up in an exaggerated manner, “You tell me.” Sansa had gotten angry, then, and yelled at him in a manner that wasn’t very ladylike. And then Theon had left her, and the story remained open-ended. The little merman did not return home, and the fisherman’s motives were never revealed.

* * *

 

 

Her mother had put her to bed that night, the way that she normally did, and Sansa had told her about the story that Theon had told her.

“And he didn’t even give the story an ending!” she exclaimed. Her lady mother looked to her in concern.

“Sansa, do you know why Theon stays at Winterfell with us?” Catelyn asks.

“Of course,” Sansa says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “he’s father’s ward.”

“No,” her mother tells her, “Theon Greyjoy is a hostage.”

Sansa felt her eyebrows knit together as she asked, “A hostage?”

“Theon’s father rebelled against the king a few years ago, back when you were very young,” Catelyn told her daughter, “And he lives at Winterfell to ensure that his father does not rebel again.”

Sansa was silent for a moment before she asked, “what happens to Theon if he does rebel?”

Her lady mother paused a moment, the way that she always did before delivering unpleasant news. She did this before she told the ending of a tale where the knight and the princess were unable to be together, and Sansa knew immediately that she was not going to like what her mother was going to say next.

“If Balon Grejoy rebels,” Catelyn says softly, “then your lord father will be expected to take Theon’s head.” Sansa could feel anger building within her, anger at the injustice of it all.

“How is that fair?” Sansa shouts, “Theon shouldn’t have to die for his father’s actions. He’s in Winterfell; he has nothing to do with them.”

“Sometimes that’s just the way that the world works,” Catelyn says, “hostages are used to insure the cooperation of rebels. Marriages are arranged for political reasons.” Her mother looked as though she was going to say more, but she decided against it. Sansa suspected that the next comment might have been something about bastards, or specifically, Jon Snow.

Sansa does not know what to say. She doesn’t even know if there’s something that she can say. The whole situation just seems so unfair.

“It would be best for you to avoid growing attached to Theon,” her mother told her, “it would be easier for you then, if the unthinkable were to happen.” She understands what her mother is saying, that it would easier on her if she doesn’t care for Theon when he ends up dead. But the very idea of that makes her stomach turn.

_He would- could never be one of them._

And Sansa took her mother’s advice, and she tried to avoid Theon. She tried to forget his words and his smiles, and tried not to grow to care for him. And she almost succeeded. But his words resounded in her dreams, and his situation left her wondering if the world might be nothing like a song.

* * *

 

 

Now, Sansa wonders what would have happened if she had reacted differently. What if she had sought Theon out, had tried to make him feel at home? But there’s another part of her that knows it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. Theon is a merman (Ironborn). He was never to be one of them. He was always of the sea.

This idea brings Sansa some comfort. No matter what happens, no matter what they do to her, she is a Stark. They can take her out of the North, but they cannot take the North out of her.

Sansa Stark is a wolf, and she always will be.


End file.
